Bears' Dino stem could break TexansMarshall can get isolated on cornerback and put him in difficult trailing position

To score points against the Texans' top-tier defense, Jay Cutler and the Bears will have to take some shots when they get into the strike zone (20- to 35-yard line). Look for deep inside breaking routes that target the secondary with Brandon Marshall as the primary read.

As shown here, the Bears have their Posse personnel (three wide receivers, one tight end, one running back) in a Doubles alignment against the Texans' base nickel sub package (five defensive backs). They will run the Dino Double Post and put stress on the top of the Texans' Cover-4 scheme.

Bears route scheme

The Dino Double Post is one of the top Cover-4 beaters in the NFL. There are two deep inside breaking routes to the open (weak) side of the formation with Earl Bennett (H) on the inside post and Marshall (X) adding the Dino stem (to corner, break to the post) on the outside post. To the closed (strong) side of the formation, tight end Kellen Davis (Y) runs the deep 7 (corner) route with Devin Hester (Z) on the shallow Smash concept.
Set bait for safety

In Cover-4 (four-deep, three-under), the safeties are taught to read the release and route stem of the No. 2 receivers (H, Y). If a No. 2 stems past a depth of 12 yards, the safeties match to the vertical concept. If a No. 2 breaks his route under a depth of 12 yards (curl, option, dig), the safeties look outside to No. 1 and drive to the inside hip on the post route to create a "bracket" coverage. However, with Bennett running the inside post, the safety (FS) has to match the route and leave the cornerback in a one-on-one situation versus Marshall. That's a tough assignment playing from an outside leverage position.

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Be sure to read the rest of the article (link above) for the whole strategy that is proposed for the downfall of the Texans.

Sure , in a perfect world that play design might cause issues for a defense .... But this aint a perfect world , the Bears OL has been pretty poor in protecting Cutler and I expect the Texans to amplify that trend.

However, I don't see the Texans playing zone unless they are 10 points ahead or it was like with a couple minutes to go in the half. Even then, we should play strictly 4-deep; that means the TE won't be double-teamed by Jackson and Manning.

Still in that situation we normally go Dime with 3 safeties (With GQ hovering)

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That's what I said earlier, us being in a dime package. However, there might be situation where they run a no huddle up tempo offense to keep us from substituting and we have to stay in a nickel package that we started out with on first and ten.

that play dies on the board because nickel (mccain) would be man to man on H, not in an underneath zone. FS (demps) will be deeper and sitting in that area unless we're blitzing - in which case cutler would be sacked twice before that route develops. S (quin) would be man on the tightend, with SS (manning) roaming, blitzing, or deep.